


No Charity in Family (Just Duty)

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Duty, Family, Flooding, Gen, Honor, Natural Disaster, Pride, charity - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:33:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24294418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: For Owen, there is no charity-just duty-in family.
Relationships: Margarry of Cavall/Owen of Jesslaw
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33
Collections: Tamora Pierce





	No Charity in Family (Just Duty)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for max at Goldenlake as part of the Wishing Tree event.

No Charity in Family (Just Duty)

Owen and his wife Margarry stood staring out over the fields of gleaming golden grain that along with the thousands of bushels that had been rolled and stacked in Jesslaw’s granary promised a bountiful harvest after a summer’s sweaty work under a broiling southern sun. With the sunlight streaming warm on their skin, it was difficult for Owen to imagine that there was any struggle or suffering anywhere. 

As if to shatter this illusion of pastoral peace, a courier rode up, the flying hooves of his horse spraying the dust and dirt of the royal road around them. As she and Owen squinted at this shadow on the horizon, Margarry commented, forehead furrowing, “It’s a messenger from Cavall.” 

Owen didn’t question his wife’s ability to spot a Cavall courier from a mile away. Even without the livery, her sharp gaze could identify any mount from Cavall’s stables. It hadn’t taken long after meeting her for Owen to realize that her eye for horses was almost as keen as her father’s. 

It was just as well that his wife could identify a Cavall messenger without the benefit of livery, because the dust and durst of the road clung to the shirt and breeches of the courier as he dismounted and bowed to Margarry, offering her a sealed scroll as he did so. “Your lady mother sends this with her love, milady. I can wait for a response if milady wishes.” 

“You can wait for a response in the kitchens, and get food and water for a bath while you’re there, Rhys.” Margarry knew the names of all the Cavall couriers almost as well as she knew the names of their horses. 

“Very good, milady.” Rhys bowed and disappeared in the direction of the kitchens, where doubtlessly he would collect gossip in addition to a meal and water for a bath. Couriers were, after all, the great conveyors of the realm’s rumors and scandals, carrying more unofficial messages than official ones. 

As Rhys left, Margarry cracked open the scroll and read the letter with an ever-expanding frown in her forehead. “Mother writes the flooding in Cavall has been terrible and has almost destroyed the entire season’s worth of grain. Buying the grain Cavall needs to survive the winter will be exorbitantly expensive, and she worries that even with belt-tightening measures, many in Cavall will starve.” 

Owen winced at the stark image his wife’s words painted in his mind. He had heard that the same rains that had kissed Jesslaw’s fields, creating the rich harvest of grain that now dimpled in a gentle breeze, had fallen hard as hailstones farther north. The banks of the Olorun had overflooded, but just last week, a note from Lord Wyldon had assured him and Margarry that Cavall had been miraculously spared from the worst of the storm’s ravages. He said as much to Margarry: “I thought your father’s last letter reported that the flooding wasn’t as severe in Cavall as it was elsewhere along the Olorun.” 

“Obviously my father lied.” Margarry’s lips pressed into a thin dagger. “He does that when he’s trying to protect me. He thinks it’s chivalry when it’s only frustrating and compromises our family’s ability to rally together during challenging times. You and I could send aid to Cavall much faster if he would just be honest with us, but instead he decides to lie and protect me.” 

“It may not be that he wants to protect you.” Owen attempted to calm his wife and wondered if he had perhaps chosen the wrong words to do so as she glared at him with narrowed eyes as if he were somehow to blame for her father’s actions. “It might just be that he’s too proud to admit that he needs help from anyone—man or woman.”

Owen was convinced this was a fair point even if Margarry wasn’t. After all, in his extensive experience with the man who had been his training master then his knightmaster and finally his father-in-law, Lord Wyldon was a man who would prefer to have all his teeth yanked out in bloody fashion than to have to ask for help. Helping others came far more naturally to Lord Wyldon than graciously accepting help. It was a noble trait, but taken too far, it was also—to borrow Margarry’s earlier term— a frustrating one. 

“Humph.” Margarry gave a snot that reminded Owen of an enraged bull about to charge at an unfortunate fieldhand, a disconcerting comparison when he understood that he would be slotting into the role of the unlucky fieldhand in question. “I’ll have Rhys carry word back to Mother that we’ll be sending wagons of our own grain to help feed Cavall and warn him that Father isn’t to hear about this until the wagons arrive. We’ll protect Father’s precious pride for as long as possible. What do you think of that, Owen?” 

“I think that’s a very good idea.” Brave as he was, Owen would never have dreamed of saying otherwise when there was that dragon fire burning in his wife’s brown eyes because if he argued with her in such a mood, it would only end with her biting off his head and eating it for supper. He didn’t particularly want to be his wife’s supper. He had higher ambitions than that. 

“It’s decided then.” Brisk as autumn wind, Margarry whipped out the pocket ledger of Jesslaw’s accounts that she seemed to lug about with her everywhere. She managed all of Jesslaw’s finances because mathematics still muddled Owen as much as it had when he was a page dependent on Keladry of Mindelan to guide him through the snarls of arithmetic. “I’ll begin calculating what aid we can afford to give Cavall. Then we can load up the wagons with the grain. You can ride with the wagons to Cavall and offer what further help you can while I’ll stay here and oversee the remainder of the harvest.” 

That was how, a week later, Owen found himself riding into Cavall at the head of a wagon train heavy with grain. When he saw his father-in-law, who had stepped away from accessing the damage to a field to greet Owen with a glower, Owen felt shock course through him. The crow’s feet by Lord Wyldon’s eyes had deepened with worry and exhaustion, and the bald patches on his head had gained more ground in the battle against his graying hair. 

Seeing the relentless march of time across the aging face of a man who had been his greatest mentor, a giant of his childhood, was like watching a grand statue crumble. It filled Owen with inexpressible sorrow in the same way that seeing the remains of the aqueducts and the villas built by the Old Ones made him melancholy. 

His reverie was broken when Lord Wyldon demanded in a voice cold as the waters that had flooded Cavall, “What’s this, Jesslaw?” 

“Wagons of grain, my lord.” Owen wished that he could’ve devised a wittier reply than the instantly apparent, but that plainly wasn’t to be. 

“I’ll summon my steward.” Lord Wyldon’s jaw was clenched tight as a fist. “He’ll make a list of all the grain you’ve delivered and agree with you on a reasonable schedule of repayment with interest for the value of the grain.” 

“You don’t have to do that, sir.” Owen had no intention of accepting repayment or interest of any sort for the grain given to Cavall in this time of trouble, and he could imagine Margarry disemboweling him if he did. 

“I beg your pardon?” Lord Wyldon arched an eyebrow, and if his tone had been cold before, it was ice now. 

“The grain is a gift, my lord.” Owen’s chin was lifted so his former knightmaster could see he was serious as steel. 

“I can’t accept such a generous gift.” Lord Wyldon shook his head, scowling, and Owen was reminded of his own warning to Margarry about her father’s impossible, infuriating pride. “It’s too close to charity, and Cavall doesn’t take charity from anyone, Owen.” 

Owen was tempted to ask how many peasants of Cavall were expected to starve for their lord’s pride but swallowed the words a second before he spoke them, recognizing that they would do no good in persuading his father-in-law to accept his generosity. 

Deciding to appeal instead to the family bonds that tied them, he insisted instead, “There’s no charity in family, my lord. Just duty, and Margarry would never forgive me if I failed in my duty to Cavall and to you.” 

“When you put it that way”—Lord Wyldon’s mouth split into a slight, grim grin—“I suppose I can be courteous enough to accept your generous gift and spare you some marital discord.” 

“That’s all I ask.” Owen’s smile was far sunnier than Lord Wyldon’s because that was indeed all he wanted: to be accepted as Lord Wyldon’s family.


End file.
